


Cigarettes

by RainbowQuartz0



Series: What Happened in Dong Lu Trung [1]
Category: The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
Genre: 1960s, 20th Century, Historical, Hurt/Comfort, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Smoking, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 14:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19427683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainbowQuartz0/pseuds/RainbowQuartz0
Summary: Part 1/? of a new series. Lemon, Rat, and O'Brien smoke after an ambush. An excerpt from Lemon and Rat's relationship as told/understood by Tim O'Brien.





	Cigarettes

Ask any soldier: cigarettes are essential to an ambush. There’s nothing in civilian life that comes close to the first drag — the shaking of your hands as you pull one out of the carton to light it and the rush of the nicotine mixing with the adrenaline. Ask nearly any soldier from any war and he will recognize this sensation.

  
This one time early in my tour, we were set up in Dong Lu Trung sometime around late June. The hamlet was reduced to a skeleton, all charred, bare bones of structures, no life but the rising black smoke and the men in our platoon. It was Lieutenant Jimmy Cross who would sit first that evening, myself and some of the others following suit. We pulled our rations from the rucksacks and ate in near silence.

  
The combined residual anxiety from combat was always palpable during this ritual. The sensation alone, for those not yet accustomed to it, was enough to rattle a man to his core, and usually would. This time had been Curt Lemon’s first ambush and he couldn’t seem to take it. You could see the corners of his mouth twitching, wanting to break the silence. No one could blame him. It took a while to master the act of appearing untouched by the action until it didn't feel like an act anymore. I wanted to tell him that.

  
“I need a smoke,” Lemon spat, as he tossed a half-eaten can of ham and motherfuckers over his shoulder and grabbed the cigarettes from his accessory pack. It was a kind of invitation, I felt. Rat Kiley and I followed close behind as we made our escape.

\--- 

“God, you should’ve met this girl,” Rat said, wagging his cigarette in Lemon’s face, “She had these big old doe eyes and cute little pigtails. Too bad she’s got herself a boyfriend. What a girl.” Rat was notorious for this kind of talk; if he wasn’t telling a war story he was always talking about girls.

  
At this point, the sun had sunk below the horizon and we’d all come down as we smoked. Even Curt Lemon, who a few minutes before had looked like he’d puke, seemed to settle down.

  
“Christ, I don’t even like cigarettes,” Lemon grumbled, “They’re nothing but cancer sticks, man.” He took another long drag.

  
“You’d better get used to it, there’s not much of anything to do in Nam but smoke and talk,” Rat replied. "And fuckin' blow-up VC. And burn down hooches." He trailed off. Rat's gaze shifted from Lemon down to his boots. "God damn it." He took the last smoke from its carton, which Lemon reached over to light before he could do anything about it. Then, Lemon dug deep into his rucksack, pulled out a smoke grenade, pulled the pin, and tossed it at Rat Kiley, who caught it.

  
“Lemon, what the hell—” Rat threw it right back at him as Lemon started to laugh. The two tossed it back and forth like a kind of hot potato, laughing and cursing each other.

  
Thinking back on watching the two silhouettes tossing the grenade back and forth in the smoky darkness, I can’t help but feel some kind of deep, unsettled anger. I want to tell Curt Lemon to escape somehow, tell him to ship himself right home so he’d never have to break Rat Kiley’s heart or get used to battle and gunfire or get blown up in the middle of the goddamn jungle. Even now, having never really taken a liking to him, I want to tell him he didn’t have to act so strong, so unaffected. “You’re just a boy,” I’d tell him, “we’re just boys.” How was he supposed to know that?

  
I think back on the smile on the face of Rat Kiley and I want to tell him that you’re not supposed to fall in love during a war. The anger I feel when I think about his grief is almost unbearable knowing it could have been avoided. “Marry one of your hometown girlfriends,” I’d tell him. Even if I had, he wouldn’t have ever listened. He’d probably tell me a story about one of them.

  
That day in Dong Lu Trung, I put out my cigarette and stood up. I was full of emotions I couldn’t yet identify as a boy. I believe I felt, most of all, I was intruding on something more intimate and profound than a game of “hot potato”. I walked away, mumbling something about fresh air.

  
I know now: that’s what happens when you send kids into a war. They fight. They smoke. They share. They love. They hurt. They play. Plenty of people will tell you war makes men out of boys, but it’s not true. War makes boys master the act of pretending to be men until it doesn't feel like an act anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. This fic is a part of a series with several chapters and is updated frequently. If you enjoyed this story, please bookmark, share, or subscribe to continue supporting my work.


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